West Coast Cities Look to Grow Up

While tall skyscrapers have long been features of New York and Chicago skylines, the West Coast’s major cities historically haven’t embraced verticality with the same fervor.

That may be changing.

Towers are underway in both Los Angeles and San Francisco that would rise higher than any U.S. building west of the Mississippi River, moves that stand to alter the vistas of the two cities.

The Los Angeles tower, a downtown mixed-use building on the site of the former Wilshire Grand hotel, was the subject of a lengthy piece in the Los Angeles Times from earlier this week, which described in detail how the project came together thanks largely to the efforts of owner Yang Ho Cho.

From the piece:

“A previous study Cho commissioned recommended against demolition, but he didn’t agree. He believed a new development would symbolize his company’s commitment to Los Angeles, and he believed that in spite of recession, now was the time to make that statement.”

The tower it is slated to rise 1,100 feet high to the tip of its spire, and mostly serve as a luxury hotel, with some office space as well.

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, Boston Properties is digging away to create the foundation for the 1,070-foot high Salesforce Tower, which is to rise more than 200 feet higher than the Transamerica Pyramid. Boston Properties and partner Hines started preliminary work last year. But the overall construction only got the green light in April, when Salesforce.com signed up to take about half the tower, making it one of multiple of new office developments in the city to lease up quickly in the past year.